Thomas Harrington Ltd - The 1930s

The 1930s

There were huge numbers of small to medium sized professional coachbuilders in existence around Britain as Thomas Harrington & Sons Ltd moved into its new Hove factory. The management of Harringtons decided that two things were necessary to stand them in good stead in this crowded market. The first was building good relationships with blue-chip customers, and the second was to produce designs with a distinctive Harrington 'look'.

Instances of the first were their long-term supply to high–class coach firms in the private and large company sectors. Such private customers included Grey-Green of Stamford Hill, London, Charlies Cars of Bournemouth and Silver Star of Porton Down. The large firms included the Tilling Group's North Western Road Car Company of Stockport and BET-group member Devon General of Exeter, but perhaps the most enduring relationship of all was as supplier to the local BET coaching powerhouse Southdown Motor Services.

The styling distinctiveness was a major selling point. A Harrington body had a clear 'look' at a time when many coachbuilders, Duple especially, would oblige customers and produce an astounding variety of outlines from the conservative to the totally bizarre, sometimes building to order straight copies of another coachbuilders style.

By the mid-1930s the Harrington 'look' included a half cab with no canopy over the engine and a stepped window line, all arranged in a distinctive flowing series of curves. By the end of the decade when streamlining was the vogue Harrington had devised and patented a new feature called the 'dorsal fin'. This appurtenance looked like a truncated aircraft tail and when applied to the rear of the vehicle allowed a rakishly curved rear-dome outline without compromising passenger access to the rear bench seat and was designed to act as an air-extractor as the vehicle moved, stale air exited the coach saloon due to the suction effect of the low pressure areas created behind the fin.